BMX - Went to my first skatepark yesterday...

Yesterday I went up to a skatepark around Pittsburgh called B-Cubed. It was the first skatepark I have ever been to, and it was freakin' awesome!

When we first got there I just kind of carved a 6ft. quarter and part of a box jump. Then I started rolling the box jumps and before I knew it I was getting about a foot or two of air off of them. After that I started doing the three funboxes. I was able to clear all of them except for the biggest one, but I was clearing it with my front wheel. Once the skateboarders left I got a chance to do the bowl. Let me just say I hated it. It had a crappy tranny and it was way too small. Once I got done with that one of my friends found a new line: come off of the 6ft. roll in and then hit the box jumps. I did that a couple of times until I almost went off the side of the first box.

Pretty soon, it was just me, my two friends, and two skaters. We pretty much had B-Cubed to oursleves. I then tried to manual the medium sized funbox. After about 10 tries I finally got it. Then it was time for the 4ft. mini. I just carved for a few minutes until I did my first fly out. Then I tried to drop in but I wrecked because I didn't have my weight into the tranny. I attempted to drop in again, and I did it fine. Finally, I went over to the 10ft. vert. I carved for a long time and I finally got the guts to fly out. I was going to drop in, but it was closing time, so I left (in one piece thankfully).

Thanks for reading my story and feel free to share your own first-time skatepark experiences.

Every time I go to a skatepark I get run off by cops. F*ckin' California.

Any BMXer should go to the Netherlands at some point they've got some serious skate parks, and they don't care who uses em.

I didn't have any trouble in Boise...bikes were perfectly legit in most of the skateparks around town. I'm a relative newcomer to the CA scene, I don't have much contact with local BMXers, I work at a shop that deals almost exclusively in high-end road bikes, and as a result not much direction or clue on where and when to ride around here. I know it's *possible* to safely poach a lot of the local haunts, but I don't have the resources to figure out all the logistics.

I do, however, have my ENDLESS empty parking lots...this area is a flatlander's dream. :D

Australia and New Zealand have public skate parks the way the US has baseball diamonds and soccer fields. They may not be huge, but you can bike or skate, and they're everywhere. A 5 or 10 minute ride in either direction from our house gets you to one. The city council, in their infinite wisdom, even put one in at the park next to my kid's high school. Public liability isn't an issue here like it is in the states.

I didn't have any trouble in Boise...bikes were perfectly legit in most of the skateparks around town. I'm a relative newcomer to the CA scene, I don't have much contact with local BMXers, I work at a shop that deals almost exclusively in high-end road bikes, and as a result not much direction or clue on where and when to ride around here. I know it's *possible* to safely poach a lot of the local haunts, but I don't have the resources to figure out all the logistics.

Shoot me an email. cmcmahon@sjbmx.com

Sounds like you had a great time. We had a nice indoor park close to me untill the "new" owner mismananaged it into the ground. Now it's back to a wherehouse.

the "new" owner

Was he simply the old owner pretending to be the new owner? I really don't see what the quotations are for.

He was "new" to owning/running the park, but had no idea how to, and now it's gone. At least that's the story I got from the bike shop. I suppose I could have left the "" off, but it was to imply that he was the new owner of a park that was not new. So he's the newer owner. Or was.